The Traitor's Side
by Just Slightly Obsessed
Summary: I know which side I’m on, and I know that I regret betraying it with all my heart.' As Luke lies dying, he reflects on the life of a traitor. One-shot. T for angsty-ness


**WARNING: Major bitterness. Then again, this is Luke. Figures, really.**

**Disclaimer: Despite people claiming it's unnecessary, I'd rather be safe. I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

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Giving everything up for something you truly believe in is supposed to be a good thing, isn't it? Romantic. Noble. Worth it, at the end of the day.

It doesn't feel worth it.

It feels painful. My chest is covered in blood from my self-inflicted wound, but that's probably the only part of me which isn't hurting right now. I'm breaking physically, and I know it. The Styx no longer protects me, and the effects of having Kronos possess me are finally taking hold. I'm dying.

I can see Jackson now, staring down at me with wide eyes. Of course. He'd never felt loyalty before, not really. He'd just blindly done what his parents told him to, saved 'his city'. Just because his father hadn't abandoned him meant he was morally obliged to help the Olympians. I'd done the harder thing. I'd stuck to my guns, even when I knew it would be difficult, even when I knew I'd make enemies. I'd given myself entirely to the cause. And yet who would be walking away unhurt, the hero?

They've called me a traitor for four years now. I've only just made the act of betrayal.

You're so weak, Luke. You're almost as weak as that Percy Jackson. Giving in, just because some little girl asks you to. You've kept yourself safe for so long, protected yourself so Kronos could be given a body, only fought those you knew you could beat. Did you think you'd have the same ending as Jackson if you listened to her? The number of times he's pretended to be noble, giving himself up for others, and yet he's never come close to dying. Not like this. Not like you.

Annabeth's coming now, crying. What has she got to cry about? She has a glorious, shiny new future ahead of her. We wrecked New York, we took Olympus, and now, because of me, it's Jackson and Annabeth who get to build it back up again. I will be remembered as the one who destroyed, not the one who saved. They take over now.

And I have to ask her. I have to ask her if she loved me, whether it was worth dying for. Thalia was lost to me now. Did anyone in this world love me at all?

But she says no. And she's looking at Jackson as she says it.

I died for him. I'm lying here, bleeding to death, for flipping Percy Jackson, and his traitorous girlfriend.

People say betraying is easy, and for most people it probably is. But not for me. Not when I believe so strongly in the cause of the unclaimed half-bloods. I tried to leave once, tried to betray Kronos. But she said no. She double-crossed me. And that's when I realised that to these people, nothing would bring them to abandon their false cause. So nothing would bring me either.

But it did. She did.

I can feel myself dying. I can't die a traitor. I have to save the unclaimed, the children of the minor gods. I have to remain true to them. I have to ask Percy Jackson for help. So I do. I tell him to make sure it doesn't happen again, that nobody is unclaimed. And he agrees. Yet again, I'm setting Jackson up to be a hero. Without me, Poseidon wouldn't have claimed him. Without me, he'd be one of the unclaimed. He wouldn't have ever been known.

Death is confusing. It brings on many facts, all of them true, and all of them conflicting. I know which side I'm on, and I know that I regret betraying it with all my heart. Annabeth's told me I'm a hero. That I'll go to Elysium. If that's true, I'm not staying there, I know that. What I've done, what I've given up for this, it's worth the Fields of the Blessed. Rebirth. Three lives. That's the path I'll choose.

Maybe, in my next life, I'll be like Jackson. I'll be everyone's hero. The one who does what they're told, the one who thinks they believe in a cause. The one who claims to give everything up, but is constantly self-pitying, who can call the unloved one a traitor while hiding behind his friends. I'll be the sort of person I hate.

That's the sort of person who goes to Elysium.

I won't.


End file.
